Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Maid of Might!

Remember the Batgirl Meme? That was some kooky Internet fun. Several superhero art memes have cropped up in the past year, but none quite captured the magic of the that first spontaneous eruption of Internet creativity. Now, there's a Supergirl meme in the offing, and it carries a certain urgency, due to the fact that the official version of Supergirl running around in the funny books is an unmitigated, mysogynistic trainwreck.

So here's my attempt at a Supergirl who is fun, sporty, and, uhm, a girl. Some specifics:1. She is, of course, accompanied by Streaky the Quantum Cat, a higher-dimensional life-form whose location and velocity cannot both be known.2. The costume incorporates culottes, so as to avoid any of the upskirt issues that plague other flying women.3. She's sporting a bit of Kryptonian crystal tech in the form of a bracelet. I'm not too sure what it does, but I suppose it should act as a Super version of whatever personal technology is big with the teens at any given moment.

I actually wrote about her shoes in the original post, but then decided I was being too geeky. But I might as well admit I passed that roadsign a long ways back.

My thinking is that she does have a pair of indestructible super-booties, but that she just plain doesn't like them. The sneakers wear out pretty quickly - or burn up on re-entry - so she probably ends most battles barefoot. But that just gives her an opportunity to try out a new pair.

Granted, giving a female character an interest in ever-changing shoes isn't exactly a bold stride forward for feminism, but it's an easy way to keep the costume looking current, and if handled as an uncommented-upon background detail, I think it could be fun.

Your supergirl fashion description reminds me exactly why I fell in love with you in the first place. I mean, who can resist a guy who unabashedly uses the word "culottes"? I think she's wearing more of a skort, myself. Cullottes scream "frumpy," whereas a skort can be sporty. Although the white tube socks have a cute geekiness about them, I think she needs ankle socks. Her shoes are great. Overall, a very charming design.

oh wow dude. i love it. the bracelet and streaky the quantum cat are incredible. i'm with you on everything but the culottes/skort. i'm working on a tighter-skirt+tights solution that i think will solve the same problem for my design.

Wait, that's why you fell in love with me? So why have I been spending all this money on gold medallions and chest-hair toupees?

Dean,

I love your earlier Supergirl drawing, and look forward to seeing what you do with the skirt and tights. I tried some variations on this in my sketchbook this weekend (I spent a lot of time this weekend drawing Supergirl in my sketchbook. I really do have a very understanding wife), and the results always looked kind of Eighties to me. But then, I'm an old man, and was probably too preoccupied with dating myself. So it'll probably take a young whippersnapper like yourself to do it right.

Chris,

Yeah, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. And guys aren't so bad on the hilariously named clothing front. We used to wear spats, after all.

Did I forget to mention the tongue piercing? I thought it was implicit in the design. It's a barbell piercing, and inside the two balls are a nightclub and an all-night diner from the bottle city of Kandor.